"Home" a sermon

Home

"Open House Sunday"

Rev. Alison Longstaff, May 4, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 33:20-22; Rev 21:1-4; Heavenly Secrets 7560

I was in one of my coffee groups not too long ago, and as is our custom, we were taking turns sharing what was on our hearts.  For some of us there, this group is one of the only safe places where we can be completely honest and be completely ourselves.  We have a group agreement that no one will judge, nor interrupt, nor give advice.  Each member is loved and accepted unconditionally.

That morning a wise and kind older woman, let’s call her “Anya” was describing her day. She and her husband have an adult child with a mildly diminished mental capacity who lives with them.  This adult child has a child who also lives with them.  The adult child has trouble holding onto jobs and trouble managing her behaviorally challenged son.  At an age when many of their peers are enjoying retirement, “Anya” and her husband are still parenting this young mother and now also needing to be the parents of her demanding little boy.  “Anya” was so weary and discouraged, and my heart ached for her.  It struck me that her home—the place where we are supposed to be able to go to rest and be safe—was regularly a place of chaos and disruption and drama.  Do to no fault of her own, nor even her daughter’s, “Anya’s”  home was not a safe haven for her.  It was not a place where she could rest.  It was full of chaos, and she saw no way to change that.

Home.  What does that word evoke in your mind?  For me it brings to mind “The Walton’s”, or that famous image of a Thanksgiving meal by Norman Rockwell.  Home should mean family, and family should mean safety and unconditional love, but all too often these things do not go together.  Too many people feel neither truly safe not truly loved.  Too many have to make a home away from their family, if they wish to feel safe.  If both your home and your family are safe and loving, consider yourself very lucky!

A church is a home too.  It is a spiritual home, and when a church runs well, it is definitely a place of unconditional love, acceptance, and spiritual and emotional safety.  That is what church should be, and that is what we should expect.  Unfortunately, all too often church is only some of these, or none of these things.  And when our church family hurts or betrays us, the wound cuts very deep.  Perhaps, while we expect our family to be crazy sometimes, we expect our church to be better, more perfect, to reflect God’s love all the time.

 

When our church gets mired in conflict, or personalities clash and start recruiting members to take sides, or when our church changes from a pastor we love to a pastor we can’t stand seem to feel good about, we can feel profoundly disillusioned, even abandoned or betrayed.  Losses such as these surrounding our church home are real and painful and occur all too often in our society.  Yet they also remain unnoticed and unacknowledged.  We understand the aching losses when someone says, “my dog just died,” or “my baby went away to college,” or “we had to sell our house,” or “he had a stroke and can no longer drive.”  But how comfortable are we in saying, or hearing with quiet sympathy, “we got a new pastor that I just can’t warm up to,” or “I can’t believe the behavior of the people at my church; it makes me feel ashamed,” or “I understand the value of the new style of worship, but I miss the old rituals so very much sometimes!”  We are more likely to placate or advise, which is never as helpful as simply listening to the pain.

Our spiritual attachments and what we find spiritually meaningful is deeply personal, yet as a culture we have a long way to go in respecting each other’s spiritual territory.  We all could afford to undergo “spiritual sensitivity training.”  Perhaps this is due to the longstanding Christian culture of dutifully attempting to invalidate and replace every spirituality the missionaries encountered.  From a pastoral and psychological perspective, that is spiritual violation.  It is profoundly disrespectful, and it is small wonder that such Christian colonization has left a trail of cultural genocide and abuse in its wake.  yes, Christianity has done a lot of good.  But I cannot gloss over the harm and abuse that is also a real part of the legacy.

 

Some visitors here today are spiritual nomads, forever wandering from group to group, taking what you like and leaving the rest, self-sufficient in your own spirituality, (which can be quite healthy).  Welcome.  May you find rest in your soul.  I certainly understand why so many choose not to trust or belong again in any church home, because of bad experiences with poorly behaved or poorly managed congregations.

Others here today were born and raised in this very church home, and can only imagine what it is like to have been deeply hurt by and lose their church home, or even what it is like to have to search and search for a spiritual home before finding one.

There are probably as many spiritual stories as there are people in this room.  What is your story?

In our scripture readings today, we heard Jerusalem called “a quiet home.” In fact the promise is that the New Jerusalem will be a place where “God will dwell with us, and wipe every tear from our eyes.”  Doesn’t that describe the spiritual home of which we all dream? That is what every church and spiritual organization should be, though many (all?) are not.

 

Emanuel Swedenborg—from whom this denomination gets its name, (rather the way Lutherans are named from Martin Luther)—prophesied that this “New Jerusalem” found in the Book of Revelation, represents a new, inclusive spirituality that will grow among all humankind.  This “New Jerusalem” will be new precisely because it will not be exclusive.  It will honor and respect the goodness and truth in all people and all religions.

Swedenborg says that we are all called to do our inner work—to undertake the metaphoric “hero’s journey,” if you will—where each one works continuously to grow in insight and compassion.  The idea is that if and when the human race can grow into such a collectively compassionate, enlightened, and responsible overall state, heaven on earth will indeed draw much closer.  What is promised in Revelation and named “The New Jerusalem” is the hope of such a universal human compassion and wisdom—a world full of millions of little Dalai lamas, if you will—only from many different spiritual origins and flavors. 

Yes, this funky little historic church is named “The Church of the New Jerusalem,” after that vision, not in any illusion that we are the embodiment of that long-awaited world state, but with the intention that we will strive towards it, day by day, step by step.  Are we a perfect spiritual home?  Not on your life, though we wish we were.  Have people been hurt here?  Yes indeed.  All we can do is express our remorse and do our best to make amends and to see that such mistakes don’t happen again.  We try to see this home like spiritual family—we love each other anyway, even if we have crazy moments and sometimes we drive each other a little nuts.  That’s what love is and that’s what family does.

Home.  What does the word mean to you? 

Does the word tug at your heart the way it tugs at mine? 

What does the ideal mean to you, and how does it compare to what you come home to every day?  No doubt everyone in this room knows at least one person whose foundation is a troubled and chaotic home, like that of “Anya” described at the opening of this sermon.  If you are so lucky as to have a home that is safe and restful, take this moment to breathe a prayer of gratitude.  And let’s all of us, stop right now for a moment to hold in our hearts and prayers all the souls who must survive somehow, day by day, in homes that are not perhaps emotionally or psychologically or physically safe.

For some of us, this church group is perhaps one of the only safe spaces where we can come and begin to be completely ourselves and be completely heard.  This congregation has a group agreement that we will not judge, nor interrupt, nor give advice (though each of us sometimes forgets).  May it ever be a place where each comer is loved and accepted unconditionally.

I have come a long way from my home in Canada to make a new home here.  I have fallen in love with this great town, and especially with this tiny, magical congregation.  Those who have lived in Maine a long time love to share the state they love with visitors, hoping they will love it too, and hoping they will fall so in love that they will stay. That’s a lot like how we feel about this little church.  We love it when others come to visit.  And we really love it when somebody decides to stay. But whether you just visit sometimes, or you move in and join us, you are welcome here, any time!  Your presence is a blessing no matter what.

Amen

Readings:

Isaiah 33: 20-22

20 Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home,
A tabernacle that will not be taken down;
Not one of its stakes will ever be removed,
Nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹ But there the majestic Lord will be for us
A place of broad rivers and streams,
In which no galley with oars will sail,
Nor majestic ships pass by
²² For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us

Revelation 21: 1-4 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. ² Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Heavenly Secrets 7560. My paraphrase of the Latin To ‘be gathered home' means to be placed in safe keeping. Spiritually a 'home' or a 'house' refers to the inner part of a person’s mind where compassion and right-thinking reside. It is the capacities for compassion and right-thinking that make someone truly human, and that essentially is the real person.   Because this inner mind is the seat of goodness and truth with a person, and the capacities of compassion and right-thinking dwell there, the Lord keeps this region utterly safe and protected deep inside each person.

By Emanuel Swedenborg

What Is Church For? - a sermon

What Is Church For?

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Feb 2^nd, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem, Maine

Genesis 9:18-29 and Matt. 23: 1-8, 13, 24-26; AC §1062

This sermon was inspired by my attendance at the “Gathering Leaves” convention in 2010.

“Gathering Leaves” is an effort on the part of Swedenborgian women to build bridges and heal old wounds between our various branches.  There have been five of these gatherings since 2004, the most recent held right here in Maine this past September.

In our short history in North America alone, the Swedenborgians have split into three major divisions (and several small independent ones as well).  We don’t really have the luxury of numbers to do this, but that hasn’t stopped us.  (And we thought we were new, and knew how to do church “right.”  Not so much!)  It was always disagreements about doctrine that divided us: about what was and wasn’t Sacred Scripture, about what was and wasn’t important to emphasize doctrinally, and about who does and does not have the authority to teach what was and wasn’t good doctrine to others.

Now, when I was in seminary we studied (among other things) what the different stages of Christianity thought about and fought about doctrinally through the years. I was amazed to discover, even looking past Christianity to include earlier spiritualities and alternatives to Christianity that people have been fighting over the very same things when it comes to religion from the beginning of time, over and over again.

Each new denomination—each new flavor of whatever spirituality, even if it likes to think it is truly new and special—is just the same old thing in new packaging.  Some of it is quite enlightened and some of it, not-so-much.  Most get slowly corrupted over time, even if they started out well.  Many limp along, broken but doggedly persistent. Others renew themselves and start afresh, offering truth and good in the world once more.

 

But the big story is that humans are human first, and humans do what humans do with religion time and time again.  The same issues and tensions arise with each new generation, just with different faces and different outer trappings. Some groups of humans navigate the tensions gracefully and well, others not so well.  Mostly we repeat the same responses and behaviors, the same decisions and divisions, century after century.  It seems that each new generation must make its own spiritual journey, regardless of any lessons learned by the preceding generation.  I guess that makes sense.  Todays’ fifth graders may know how to tie their shoes, but that doesn’t mean today’s toddlers already know how.  They still have to learn what they still have to learn.

Maybe that is how the Bible can remain relevant century after century.  In its spiritual sense or inner meaning, the Bible tells the whole of the human story---the whole of the human spiritual journey---from darkness to enlightenment; from inward looking self-interest to outward looking love and compassion.  The spiritual journey is the same for all, no matter who we are or in what time period we were born.  We all have to make it, and the path never changes.

And so each new generation, and each new flavor of “religion” struggles over the same issues, with slight variations, century after century.  And the Bible prophesies all of this, and describes it all in detail.  It foretells precisely the way we will divide and differentiate within our various religious groups, because God knew we would do this---because this is what we do. 

Our reading from Swedenborg today about Shem, Ham, and Japheth is one description of the nature and quality of the ways we divide ourselves as spiritual beings or “churches.”  It is rather comforting.  Trust me.  I’ll show you.

But before I do, let’s remind ourselves of three basic Swedenborgian concepts to help us along the way:

First, Swedenborg draws our attention to the fact that “love” is our very life.  Translated, this means that our emotional reality is our primary reality.  We cloak our emotional being in interpretations, meanings, and story, but deep down inside we are all emotion, no matter how rational we like to think we are.  There is nothing wrong with this.  It is how we are made.

Second, our default emotional reality is dictated by our “lizard brain.”  The primary job of our lizard brain is to keep us alive---fed, sheltered, and safe from harm---both physically and psychologically. Swedenborg calls this part of our nature the “natural” or the “proprium.”  Other philosophies might call this side of our nature the “shadow self,” “the dark side,” or the “ego”.  But know this: the lizard brain is not bad.  We need it.  It serves a necessary and vital purpose.  However, it does become dark when it is left un-managed---when it is allowed to call the shots---for it will always choose the least enlightened and most self-serving behavior, every time, without fail.  It’s as enlightened as a lizard.

Third, we are created dual natured: both natural and spiritual; both physical and metaphysical.  That means we have a basic emotional nature much like our mammalian and reptilian cousins, but we also have a higher nature from God that contains the ability to feel and express altruism and true selfless love for each other.  Balancing the lizard brain is this higher nature, which Swedenborg calls the “rational faculty” or we might know as the observer-self.  This observer-self gives us the ability to step back and reflect on our thoughts, feelings, and motivations.  The observer-self lets us train and manage the lizard brain.  Truly, the wise advice to “know thyself” is the very smart recommendation to develop and use this self-reflective ability.  Taking time to examine our feelings and choices creates the space in us to make ever more enlightened and altruistic choices---choices that include the well-being of all, not just the self.  Some spiritualities call this growing state of conscious self-management “enlightenment,” or “mindfulness.”  Swedenborgians call it “regeneration.” 

Bearing in mind that our default state tends to be emotion-based self-interest; I ask you, “Is it any wonder that we get anxious and contentious and split when it comes to matters of religion?” Bearing in mind that to grow spiritually we must consciously develop our reflective and altruistic capacities, and not everyone is fully enlightened yet, is it any wonder we struggle to agree on what is important in church?  At any given time and in any given place, we humans are emotional first, and as a group will display all different levels of enlightenment and non-enlightenment in our interactions.  We are all in different spiritual states, each one with strengths and weaknesses, and each one struggling to get along with the others, like siblings in a family.

Concerning the three sons of Noah, Swedenborg tells us:

The church [of that time] included people who were internal [“Shem”], people who were internal but corrupted [Ham”], and people who were external [“Japheth”]. Internal people are those who make loving-kindness and compassion the most important objective of religion. Corrupted internal people are those who make beliefs apart from any loving-kindness the most important objective of religion. And external people are those who give little thought to spirituality but who nevertheless perform charitable works and reverently keep up the religious observances of the church. Members of any church can be sorted into these three types of people.  No others exist who can be called members of the church. Arcana Coelestia (aka Heavenly Secrets) 1062

This says to me that at any given time, we spiritual/natural humans will fall more or less into these three categories.  No matter how you slice us, humans will do what humans do with religion, and it takes all kinds and stages of us to make a whole.

Please don’t try to figure out which of Noah’s sons you are.  We all wander in and out between these groups as we learn and grow anyway.  What is more important is the vision of where we want to end up that will keep us moving in a good direction and working together most successfully. 

Non-enlightenment tends to be fearful, judgmental, self-centered and divisive.  Semi-enlightenment loves the ritual and external trappings of church, likes to do good works, but is not very self-aware.  More advanced enlightenment sees beyond the external and looks constantly past self-interest toward the spirit of everything, striving always toward the well-being of the whole.  Any group, even when they think they’ve solved their problems by splitting, will display this whole array of individuals to one extent or another even still, within their splinter groups.  It’s like a hologram.  Divide us up, and we just show a smaller version of the same whole.

 

How you or I views what church is and how it should be done will depend entirely on where you or I are on the spiritual journey.  It will also be affected by what psychic wounds we have sustained, and what prejudices we have developed.  It’s no wonder we struggle to agree.

So, “What Is Church For?”

I could have gone so many different directions with this topic.  I could have talked about community-building and the celebration of life passages.  I could have explored the value of spiritual education. I could have looked at the question of how to be a healthy, growing church even as the meaning and relevance of “church” seems increasingly lost in our modern lifestyle.  Instead, I’m going to leave you with a story from the 2010 Gathering Leaves Convention.

That year the convention was held near Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, which is where the head offices of two of the three different branches are located. There were many, many Swedenborgians living near the convention site.  So the final worship ceremony was opened to include any women and men from the surrounding community who might like to join us.  We had a team of four women leading that worship service, including one woman from a branch that does not ordain women.  She had pursued and gotten a non-denominational ordination anyway, and had been leading small, unofficial worship services for local Swedenborgians despite the disapproval of her denomination.  When the father of that woman entered the worship space and took a seat at the back she confessed to me with wide eyes, “Now I’m nervous!”  It turns out that he had never attended any of his daughter’s worship services in all the years she had been leading them.  Not one.  Ever.  He was an ordained minister himself, yet had never approved of her fight for women’s ordination. And his tradition not only forbids women from joining the ministry; they have been known to treat harshly those who speak up in favor of it.  Simply to enter the room and remain was a bit of a professional risk on his part. His very presence there that night was a new and profound statement of acceptance for his daughter.

How many people even knew this small drama was going on?  I wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t spoken to me.  But knowing transformed that moment into a deeply sacred one for me, without needing any of the other trappings of the worship service.  That one silent act of reconciliation was invisible to most, yet a significantly valuable outcome of the Gathering Leaves effort.

And that is why we come together again and again in as a church community, in my opinion.  Despite petty disagreements, personality quirks, and differences of vision, it is good for our souls.  When we remember that it is for reconciliation, not judgment; for mutual service, not fighting who has the “rightest” interpretation, we are on the right path.  We come to encounter the sacred—the sacred that is present within love, within forgiveness, within learning and reconciliation.

For deep down inside we are all alike.  We need each other.  When we remove enough layers of talking and judging and struggling, at our core we all simply want to belong, to know we have a purpose, and to know we are loved.

 

And that is what church is for. Doing church well leads us to our inner, spiritual home.  A healthy church community provides a place in which we can discover who we are, who God is, and how to be closer to each other.  In that process we encounter what is truly sacred in life.  We are reminded that our life has meaning and purpose, that we have a valuable contribution to make in the world, and that we are safe and loved.  We forgive and we are forgiven.  What is more sacred than that?

 

The church of the Lord is with everyone in the whole world who lives a good life according to their principles. All who live a good life, wherever they are, are accepted by the Lord and come into heaven.  This is because all who live a good life according to their principles in point of fact interiorly acknowledge the Lord, because such goodness comes from the Lord, and the Lord is within that goodness. Emanuel Swedenborg, The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine § 246

What do you think church is for?  Amen 

The Readings:

Genesis 9: 18-29

¹⁸ Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. ¹⁹ These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

²⁰ And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. ²¹ Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. ²² And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. ²³ But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.

²⁴ So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. ²⁵ Then he said: “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren.”

²⁶ And he said: “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.
²⁷ May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem;
And may Canaan be his servant.”

²⁸ And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. ²⁹ So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

Matthew 23: 1-8, 13, 24-26

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, ² saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. ³ Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. ⁴ For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. ⁵ But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. ⁶ They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷ greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ ⁸ But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren.

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.  Blind guides, who choke on a gnat and yet swallow a camel! 

²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.^[f] 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

The Arcana Coelestia (aka Heavenly Secrets) §1062

The church [of that time] included people who were internal [“Shem”], people who were internal but corrupted [Ham”], and people who were external [“Japheth”]. Internal people are those who make loving-kindness and compassion the most important objective of religion. Corrupted internal people are those who make beliefs apart from any loving-kindness the most important objective of religion. And external people are those who give little thought to spirituality but who nevertheless perform charitable works and reverently keep up the religious observances of the church. Members of any church can be sorted into these three types of people.  No others exist who can be called members of the church. Arcana Coelestia (aka Heavenly Secrets) §1062

Revised from a sermon preached July 18^th, 2010; at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener, Ontarios

Keeping the Sabbath Holy - a sermon

“Keeping the Sabbath Holy In 2014”

Rev. Alison Longstaff

Jan 19, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Exodus 31: 12-18; Mark 2:23-3:4; AC 10730

                                                                                                           

            In 2007, I had the privilege of travelling to the Holy Land with a group from my seminary.  We had a layover in London. It turns out that this next flight was very full, due to delays affecting many other travelers.  We were put on one of those planes with two aisles and nine seats across, which carries over 300 people, to accommodate all the volume. And as this was a flight to Tel-Aviv, many of our fellow passengers were observant Jews.

          

  We all got seated, and we taxied for a long time.  We taxied for so long that when we finally came to a stop, the fellow next to me jerked awake, thinking we had already landed in Tel-Aviv.  No such luck.  Instead, we sat idle in a long line-up of planes waiting for take-off.  This was Heathrow after all.  We were in for a wait. 

            Finally, the captain’s voice came on the speaker, to announce ... that there was a mix-up with the baggage and we had to taxi all the way back to the gate to offload one stray piece of luggage. 

         A groan passed around the cabin, and cell phones popped out as folks called to warn relatives.  Our delay was of particular concern to the many observant Jews aboard.  You see, it was Friday afternoon, and the minutes were ticking away to the official start of their Sabbath, which began at sunset.

             It turned out that if we were delayed much longer, all the observant Jews would have to get off the plane right there at Heathrow, so that they could observe their Sabbath.  They would not ride in a plane, even if someone else was flying it.  They needed to arrive in Tel Aviv well before the start of the Sabbath, as they would be forbidden to walk more than a mile nor to accept a ride to their various destinations once the Sabbath started.  Complicating things further, if they did all deplane in Heathrow, all of their luggage would have to be found and removed due to security laws, before the rest of us could get on our way.  What a nuisance!

The captain was made aware of the dilemma, and he must have pulled some strings.  The stray luggage was removed double-time without our taxiing back to the gate. Our flight was bumped to the head of the line for take-off, and the pilot “stepped on the gas” to get us to Tel-Aviv about a half hour before the start of the Sabbath.  Our fellow passengers scattered.

            I tell you, that was the quietest, emptiest airport I had ever seen.

I was more impressed by this experience than I would have expected.  It was touching to observe these people’s willingness to be massively inconvenienced so as to honour their understanding of God’s laws.  It was something to see how “the whole world” was, in a sense, inconvenienced by this one group’s devotion. 

            I was impressed, not just by the integrity of the devotion of these conservative Jews, but also by the way the airline scrambled to accommodate their need. I also felt deeply grateful to be Swedenborgian, which lets us view the text of the Bible spiritually, not literally, and frees us from such logistical nightmares.

            But it did make me reflect. What does it mean to “keep the Sabbath Holy” when one is a Swedenborgian?  Should we be so strict?  Certainly today’s modern life often makes shift work, homework assignments, long drives, and a host of other obligations and activities  land on Sundays, whether we like it or not.  Should we refuse work shifts, not shop, not run errands, and not drive anywhere on our Sabbath?  Are we observant enough?

In our text from Mark, Jesus was careful to warn us against such literalistic thinking.  Jesus urges us to live by the spirit of the holy texts rather than the literalistic laws. He implies that we must keep the Sabbath Holy in spirit first, then choose how we wish to honour it physically and materially. 

            So, how do we keep the Sabbath in spirit?  Reading in Swedenborg, we find words of beauty, hope and promise, as he describes the true meaning of the Sabbath.  The Sabbath means “rest” and “peace,” because it corresponds to the time when all our spiritual battles will be won.  The Sabbath describes the Lord’s state when He finally united His Human fully with His Divine, which is what we celebrate on Easter morning.  It therefore also represents the time when we will be conjoined with the Lord and heaven in our hearts---when our work of regeneration is finally “done.”

How far away does that feel?  Life on earth is pretty full of struggles, misunderstandings, broken relationships, and widespread injustices.  This state of inner connection with heaven can seem like it is a long way off.  Nevertheless, the Lord does give us periodic glimpses of heavenly peace, in moments of tenderness in relationships, in hearing human stories of hope and redemption, and in witnessing acts of pure creative joy.  Eventually, as we do the work of regeneration, we will experience such states of inner gratitude and hope and joy more fully and more deeply.  And this is one way heaven comes to earth.

            Swedenborg tells us that to the extent that we do the work of regeneration, we will be granted this internal Sabbath rest.  Not only will we experience it, we will become it, for everyone, so far as he or she advances toward heaven is called “a Sabbath to the Lord.”  (Heavenly Secrets # 85)  Imagine being so filled with hope and peacefulness that it spreads to those around us.  I know I have met people like that.  I know I would like to be one of those people some day.

            In contrast to this vision of heavenly peace are the Old Testament warnings against ignoring the Sabbath.  They can be unnerving to read.  “Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people…[and] put to death.” 

          Yikes.  That’s pretty harsh.  Can you imagine if we went around having to kill everyone who did work on Sundays? It would sure solve the overpopulation problem!  And you’d have to kill me, because I definitely work on Sundays.

Despite the external harshness, mercy lies in the internal meaning of these laws.  

            In the internal meaning, keeping the Sabbath “Holy” is describing our need to remember that all good and truth come from the Lord.  “Profaning the Sabbath day” is describing the times when we are lead by our fears and our neediness, not by trust in the Lord.  When we have forgotten that the Lord is in charge, we succumb to the illusion that WE are the source of our wisdom and strength---that we do everything ourselves.  We all think and feel this sometimes.  We can’t help it.  We are born limited and blind.

            To say that someone is “cut off” if he or she profanes the Sabbath isn’t actually describing a punishment; it is a description of what happens.  When we are in a place of forgetting that God is Wise and Good and in charge, then we are in a state of being cut off from

God. We feel alone.  We start struggling to do it all ourselves, usually from fear and emptiness.  We start grabbing for objects or people or accomplishments that we think will fill our needs.  And at those times, we aren’t connected to the reality of God’s love and care.  We have succumbed to the illusion that we can and must fix our emptiness ourselves, through doing more and doing it better, and through getting more things or having the right friends.... So long as we remain trapped in these illusions, we are in a kind of hell.  Believe me, it’s not a great place to visit, and you certainly don’t want to live there.  It is empty and frightening and a place of great struggle.  But falling into that illusion is what we do, and repeatedly falling into that illusion is how we learn about the difference between heaven and hell.    The point isn’t that we

make this mistake, the point is that we are able to return again and again to the Lord, until the peaceful realization that God is in charge becomes permanent.  “Remembering the Sabbath” for you and me today, may mean keeping a firm grip on God’s promise of our regeneration, despite how many times we find ourselves falling into the illusion of our own power and into fear.

            “The Sabbath” is describing a state of constantly remembering God’s loving care.  The Sabbath means being fully good and fully wise, and living from this goodness and wisdom.  The Sabbath is the state we all long for: true peace, true love, and true fulfilment. 

            In our reading in Mark, we heard that “the Jews” were offended when Jesus freed his followers from a literalistic observance of the Sabbath.  Now remember, “Jews” in the story do not mean a specific ethnic group out there.  No.  It is referring to a part of us, a part of you and me that has a certain quality. We are not to judge that part of us, just understand it and be patient with it. In the realm of correspondences the “Jew” is the part of our nature that is deeply earnest and attaches strongly to literalistic interpretations of Scripture.  There is a part of us that wants the observance of the Sabbath to be so concrete. It is so earnest it wants compliance to

be easy and measurable, because then it feels safe.  If God’s holy laws were strictly about measurable physical actions, then we could go to church, and check off “keep the Sabbath,” and feel good. We also would never have to enter the messy realm of examining our feelings and intentions.  We could keep spiritual life external. That’s what the inner “Jew” finds comfortable.  But yet the realm of feelings and intentions is where the true spiritual work lies. 

Of course, if checking off “keep the Sabbath” by sitting in a pew for an hour each week is the best someone can do, then God accepts that.  There is a place for that way of doing “spirituality.”  But that external life of worship is so far from the deep and rich inner spiritual life that God intends for us.  Surely it is better to strive for the peace promised by the true inner Sabbath.

            To keep the Sabbath spiritually we must dare to stray from the safe shores of certainty into the realm of feeling and intention.  The spirit is not an area of such easily cut and dried rules.  We can’t measure if we are keeping the Sabbath “right” when it’s all about our spiritual movement and growth.  Because, in the realm of spirit and heart, it isn’t so much

about being “right” anyway.  Sincerity counts, and humility, intention and compassion count, far more than “rightness.”  It isn’t about being right, it is about being more loving.

            What does keeping the Sabbath look like for you?

            For me, it means to pursue regeneration sincerely.  For me, it means to pursue the Lord’s presence earnestly, and to trust His leading, no matter how remote it can seem sometimes.  It means to trust the process, and keep getting back on the horse no matter how many times I fall off.  I think that keeping the Sabbath Holy means trusting absolutely that no matter how broken you or I may look to ourselves, the Lord promises us wholeness. He promises me.  He promises you.  He promises every one of us.   The minute you or I believe we are too broken to be saved, the illusion has won.  But Hell is never stronger than God.  Never.  I keep the Sabbath Holy when I trust in God’s loving goodness and the promise of regeneration, and I keep trying, no matter what.

            Keeping the Sabbath also involves taking good care of our relationships.  We grow through relationship just as much as through individual work.  We need community, however we find it, despite how attractive the notion of the hermit’s pursuit of spirituality might be.  Much of our spiritual life and work happens in relationship.  Part of the beauty of the Harry Potter series is the message that he could not beat the “dark lord” alone.  He was only able to succeed with the love and support of his friends and the whole community.  This is true for all of us.

            And on the deepest level, remembering the Sabbath means to hold before our eyes the promise of regeneration.  The Lord promises a time of rest for us all—a time when our hearts and our minds will truly be at peace.  This is the true love that we all seek, an internal union of such love and integrity, that we will have no more pain or struggle, and this will be reflected in all our relationships, from our most intimate to our most public.

            This is my charge to you today, whether you make it to church regularly or not, keep the Sabbath Holy in your heart.  If you do this you will be blessed in your work and in your relationships and in your home.  Trust in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and he will give you your heart’s desires.    Amen. (Psalm 37)

Originally preached August 5^th, 2007, Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener

The readings

Exodus 31: 12-18

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.  Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.  For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.  The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.  It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.' “When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

Mark 2:23-28 – Mark 3:4

 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.  The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"  He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?  In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."  Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

Mark 3:4 Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. 

Secrets of Heaven, Emanuel Swedenborg # 10730.  The statement: 'And the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah' is actually referring to the second state in the regeneration or enlightenment process of a person, in other words, when that person is joined to the Lord… In its highest meaning, it is describing the union of the Lord's Human with His Divine.  With humans, first the Lord leads by means of truths or laws, and then the Lord uses those laws to draw the individual into a life of love and integrity, and thus joins the individual to Himself.  ‘The Sabbath' is describing this second state in the regeneration of a person, which is when inner goodness or loving-kindness is now ruling the individual’s decisions and actions, and once they are inwardly ruled by goodness, they are led by the Lord.

[2] Strictly speaking, 'the Sabbath' means rest and peace, because when the Lord united His Human to His Divine He had peace.  Then all the spiritual battles ended, and everything in heaven and hell was restored to order. Therefore, not only did He Himself have peace but it spread to the angels in heaven and the people on earth.  All of creation dwelt in peace and safety. 

[3] It is an all-embracing reality that a person should be joined to the Lord, which is achieved through regeneration.  This alone brings a person inner peace and spiritual security. This is also why among the Israelite nation the Sabbath was the number one illustration of their covenant with Jehovah, that is, of being joined to the Lord….  For a covenant joins together those for whom it is binding.